Mental health resists: memories of territorial work in the City of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The article discusses the territorial work developed in the Psychosocial Care Network (RAPS) of the city of Rio de Janeiro with people in psychological distress and with problems arising from the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. Through the experience report, workers of primary care and strategic psychosocial care devices expose the daily work of territorial work in mental health, elaborating three questions: the first, related to the challenge of weaving intrasectorality in RAPS; the second, the management of severe clinical and psychological suffering scans from the encounter between health workers, users and their families in homes and on city streets; and, finally, the recognition of territorial work in RAPS as an ethical and political act that depends on the choices made in services and management, which are mediated by the conditions underwhich the Unified Health System and its workers pass.